Social Distancing is the newest word in the parenting vocabulary. How can we parent through these unprecedented times?

Tomatoes are the pride and joy of garden dabblers. The joy that comes from eating a big, beautiful tomato from one’s own garden is immense. But tomatoes are odd little fruits and to enjoy them, you can’t treat them like other plants.

Many garden plants need nurturing. You give them plant food, water, and sunlight. Make sure no weeds or pests are attacking them. And then just stand back and let the magic happen. But not tomatoes.

They need a bit more…see how raising children is a lot like growing tomatoes!

Our daughter, Bailee Howard, shares the amazing collision of talent and passion that mitigated her weaknesses and propelled her forward into her strengths.

We’re leaping into chapter five as our daughter, Ciera Tyler, shares her experiences being raised in a Strengths-Based home.

Let’s talk about chapter four as Brandon shares about our assessment you can take for your children to uncover their Incredible strengths.

We would give you a peak inside our home library. We are constantly asked for book recommendations by people who are wanting to dig deeper into the world of strengths-based living. So here you have it! Our top 14 picks of good reads!

Watch as Brandon talks about the Five E’s for Strengths Identification. This video is helpful to us parents and for our kids! 

Analyn talks about Chapter 3, and the importance of staying in Discovery Mode with our kids. Watch this VLOG to get three tips you can put into practice today!

This Vlog covers chapter two, Exchange Frustration for Fascination. Do you remember the day you found out you were going to be parents? After the shock wears off, you probably found yourself fascinated with thoughts of your unborn or adopted child. Who will they resemble most? Will they love sports or music? Will they enjoy building things or performing in school plays? Why do we lose this excitement and desire to learn about our children? Come with us as we approach this subject on this self discovering journey in our own family.

This weeks Vlog, Inspire Your Kids to Shine, is an invitation to be a student of your kids and to engage them while learning the areas they excel in, and derive enjoyment from. What makes your child’s eyes shine?

We are very excited to release our book trailer and share it with you. As we eagerly anticipate the book launch we hope that this video gives you a sneak peak into the motive and essence of our book “Play to Their Strengths”.

We decided to carve out some time this month as a family for each person to consider where they are now and where they want to be at the end of 2019. Brandon and I had done this personally but wanted to extend the exercise to our children.

There are a host of different ways we teach and talk strengths in our household. Given my profession, I have a lot to say about it. But one way we encourage our children to grow and develop is through book reports.We offer suggested titles authored by authors we respect and our teenage children choose the book they want to dive into. When they finish, they draft a book report to share with the family about what they learned.

As we orient ourselves to start the year strong, it helps to gain perspective from the people most impacted by our parenting, our kids. If your children are school age or older, the following exercise could prove invaluable to understanding how your parenting approach is impacting the relationship with your kids and subsequent influence you have in their life.

We have a natural caregiver in our family. It’s our job as Madeline’s parents to recognize and encourage the strength and passion she is showing. We have three cats in our home, and they are Madeline’s babies.

As we spend time speaking with parents, either in our living room, in a boardroom, or at a doctor’s office, we find many parents are challenged with the reality of losing touch with their adolescent kids.

We’ve been there.

It’s that time of the year again. We spend a few minutes reflecting on the highs and lows, wins and losses of 2018 and look ahead to with hopes, dreams, and goals for 2019. As parents, it is a particularly great time to consider some new parenting goals to go with the new year.  

As parents we are constantly looking for ways to engage our kids. We are battling a myriad of distractions for our children’s attention. There are some life lessons, valuable activities………..

Every year I attend the World Strengths Summit and rub shoulders with several colleagues from around the world who engage organizations, as I do, to shift the focus of their developmental strategy to a strengths-based approach. At the most recent Summit, I was speaking with one of my “mates”…..

We were so blessed to take the Clifton StrengthsFinder several years ago. It felt like someone had followed us around and knew our thoughts. Rooted in five decades of research, the StrengthsFinder is an online test that measures the presence of talent in 34 general strength categories. Here’s a little more about it so you can take it for yourself.

Benjamin Zander, is a famous orchestra conductor and he says, “I have a definition of success. For me, it's very simple. It's not about wealth and fame and power. It's about how many shining eyes I have around me.” He describes shining eyes as the look in the face of his musicians when they find the thing they love………

Analyn and I have a passion for parenting because we believe every family can have a joy filled home that offers hope and successfully launches productive young adults into the world.

When I was young, my Mom used to say, “Mr. Fair is dead.” What she meant was that each of us siblings were different. No two of us were wired similarly nor were we motivated by the same things. She figured out what it has taken countless years of research to convince others of - people are different and equal treatment can actually be detrimental!

Have you heard of the “carrot and stick” approach for motivating people? It is essentially saying you can use rewards or penalties to motivate others to achieve desired outcomes.

Recently, my eleven year old son David and I were talking about his day at school. The conversation went like this: